Inmate Who Claims He Led 'Goon Squad' Gets Early Parole

July 13, 1986|By United Press International

RAIFORD — A convicted murderer who claimed he led an inmate ''goon squad'' that beat up prisoners at the direction of guards has been paroled 29 years early.

Johnny Lee Fort, 37, a 300-pound former semipro football lineman, was quietly released Thursday from the Lake Butler Medical and Reception Center and is living in a inmate halfway house in Jacksonville.

Prison records indicated he has a standing job offer from a local carpen- ters union.

Fort was serving 20 years on a 1972 second-degree murder conviction and 30 years for a 1975 escape and burglary conviction.

A Safety Harbor native, Fort was the subject of a 60 Minutes segment on CBS-TV in 1981. He received national publicity after claiming he led a prison- sponsored ''goon squad'' -- a band of inmates given rewards by prison guards for beating up rebellious prisoners.

Officials at the Union Correctional Institution, where Fort allegedly ran the ''goon squad,'' denied any wrongdoing. They claimed Fort concocted the story, hoping to be transferred to a more comfortable federal prison.

The broadcast sparked a $2 million libel suit brought by two corrections officers named in Fort's allegations. The suit is pending. The Florida Parole and Probation Commission voted 6 to 2 to release Fort 63 months before his scheduled parole in October 1991, and 29 years before his sentence would have been completed on Oct. 14, 2015.

Commissioners said their recommendation was based largely on an independent investigation by Sen. Arnett Girardeau, D-Jacksonville, who lobbied for Fort's release.

The commission's decision angered Assistant State Attorney Harris Tobin, chief prosecutor in Union County, when Fort made his allegations.

''It offends the hell out of me,'' Tobin said. ''It's just amazing to me, what with all the stuff he was involved in, that they would parole him.''

Prison records show Fort has had a clean disciplinary record since January 1985, but his lengthy stay in Florida prisons has been stormy. He was stabbed twice in 1982 by inmates at UCI and staged hunger strikes to protest prison conditions.

Fort also has several escapes on his record, including one in 1968 in Pinellas County while awaiting trial on murder charges, and one in 1974 when he stole a car and fled the Brooksville Road Prison in Hillsborough County where he was serving the second-degree murder term.

Fort will be on parole until his scheduled 2015 sentence completion date.